PND means Portable Navigation Device, and in general use refers to any portable automotive GPS device.
For several years now there have been those that claim PNDs are a dying market and that they will die a quick death. The exact opposite of that has been true. PNDs still continue to sell by the truckload and in addition have become quite advanced in overall look, construction and use:
To this day, a smartphone simply cannot compete with a PND no matter the manufacturer. Could be Garmin, could be TomTom, could be Magellan; it doesn’t matter. Nothing navigates as well as a true dedicated real-time sat-nav system. If you want the best in GPS navigation, you have to use a PND.
But why is this?
It’s not that smartphones can’t do GPS because they certainly can. It has basically everything to do with software licensing, because in the end it’s the software that makes PNDs so great. The software I speak of is comprised of two parts, that being operational software by the GPS-maker itself, and the map data provided by NAVTEQ or TeleAtlas.
Garmin in particular is still trying to do the smartphone thing. The first attempt was nuviphone. It had a cold reception at best. People simply didn’t like it. Now they’re going at it again with Garminphone from the Garmin-Asus partnership. This time it runs Android, and people do like that. It has all the stuff that should make for a great smartphone, and with Garmin software + NAVTEQ map data will finally break the need to have a smartphone and separate PND.
But will it convert iPhone owners to Android? Is the convenience of having a smartphone with Android and Garmin GPS technology worth giving up iPhone and all the apps it has available?
Personally speaking, I’d still go with the PND because the only place real-time GPS is truly needed is in the car. For instances where you need GPS while on foot, existing smartphone GPS tech seems to work just fine.
Should GPS-makers stay out of the smartphone biz, just make PNDs and start licensing the software to more popular smartphones?
Let people know by writing a comment or two.
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I don’t think I’ll give up my Nuvi anytime soon. It works too well for all of the reasons that you’ve listed above, and on your many other blogs about GPS. Then again, I use a Palm Centro. While it is flawed, I have no interest in switching to AT&T for a iPhone, and all of the many phones I’ve looked at, they’re just not that impressive. I think Garmin should stick to what they know best, but who knows, I thought apple should stay out of the phone biz too.
Though I dont have a car yet, i would prefer to use a PND over a smartphone app personally because teh only time I would be using GPS would be when i was driving somewhere, and even then i would probably still use mapquest.. But that is just me.
Smartphones have a size limitation that PNDs do not have. If you make them too big people will not want them. Since PNDs are typically used in the car and you need to be able to quickly glance at it and read information or view a map, larger screens have an advantage here.